Steam may seem like an odd choice as the sole distribution platform for Crytek's service, but Valve's sizable market is an undeniable boon. "We wanted to ensure that when we released CryEngine to subscribers, it would be in the best place to address today's indie gamers and developers," says Carl Jones, Crytek's director of business development. "Steam is the best place right now for developers to create their games, show them to a huge community and even release them directly to market."

Jones isn't wrong - Steam's audience is filled with would-be and amateur developers, and Crytek's business model is perfect for that market. CryEngine is Steam's first (and currently only) fully-featured game development engine, and comes with a generous package of documented source code, references, and pre-made demos to help budding developers learn the ropes. Once indie developers create something worth publishing, the subscription even lets them commercialize their game with no royalties or license fees.

"Serious games" is a relatively widely-used term, but not really a general use one. It means games for educational or training purposes. The point of including them is so that people don't build submarine training 'games'. Don't worry, they won't force you to include jokes or wackiness :-)

The reason things like pornography are in there is so that they can distance themselves from from CryPorn 2. At the point where you want to make that, you'd need to get in touch, and the license you negotiate would probably be along the lines of "don't mention us anywhere!".

i can see the logic behind it, but excusivity is almost never a good choice, and im pretty sure Valve doesnt force anybody to have exclusive deals with them, Crytek should make their engine avaliable in other platforms me-thinks

NuclearKangaroo:i can see the logic behind it, but excusivity is almost never a good choice, and im pretty sure Valve doesnt force anybody to have exclusive deals with them, Crytek should make their engine avaliable in other platforms me-thinks

The talk about audiences and similar is likely a bit of a red herring. The important point will be that Steam provides a ready-made platform for distribution. It would cost quite a bit for Crytek to set up all their own servers, payment handling, and so on. Presumably they've figured that the cut Valve takes will cost them less than the overhead of doing it all themselves. Since Steam is available for all PC OSes and doesn't cost anything itself, there's really no downside to having it there. While some people seem to dislike Steam on principle, none of the reasons given for this really apply to a developer who won't be forced to publish their final product on Steam.

Certainly a very good move for marketing, really can't get around not seeing Cryengine on the front page now, and this will probably be another magic way to circumvent Steam's asinine greenlight system.

On the technical side however this is dumb, you the already buggy software depend on an also buggy DRM which means every problem will be twice as much work to figure out. And now users need to rely on keeping two accounts secure/companies happy, because if either side decide your account is no good then you are shit out of luck and the development tools are gone.

NuclearKangaroo:i can see the logic behind it, but excusivity is almost never a good choice, and im pretty sure Valve doesnt force anybody to have exclusive deals with them, Crytek should make their engine avaliable in other platforms me-thinks

The talk about audiences and similar is likely a bit of a red herring. The important point will be that Steam provides a ready-made platform for distribution. It would cost quite a bit for Crytek to set up all their own servers, payment handling, and so on. Presumably they've figured that the cut Valve takes will cost them less than the overhead of doing it all themselves. Since Steam is available for all PC OSes and doesn't cost anything itself, there's really no downside to having it there. While some people seem to dislike Steam on principle, none of the reasons given for this really apply to a developer who won't be forced to publish their final product on Steam.

i guess it makes sense

i dont really hate steam, i love it, but you know, the more platforms the merrier

archiebawled:"Serious games" is a relatively widely-used term, but not really a general use one. It means games for educational or training purposes. The point of including them is so that people don't build submarine training 'games'. Don't worry, they won't force you to include jokes or wackiness :-)

The reason things like pornography are in there is so that they can distance themselves from from CryPorn 2. At the point where you want to make that, you'd need to get in touch, and the license you negotiate would probably be along the lines of "don't mention us anywhere!".

The terms are too loose and open to interpretation and every time you have loose terms in a legal document you lay yourself open to a lawsuit. They should have defined what they meant by simulation and serious games. It doesn't matter Serious games is a relatively widely used term, or a general use one because it is without legal definition. Crytek, as the drater of the license, would have to prove that a normal person would reasonably understand what is meant by serious games.

Most of them are straightforward but the simulation and "serious games" terms are just asking for trouble.

So are those not allowed or what?

Because here I am thinking a deal like this would be absolutely perfect for researchers who want to make simulations of things, educational tools or anything non-profit really. It's a pretty powerful tool for fairly little money.

Because here I am thinking a deal like this would be absolutely perfect for researchers who want to make simulations of things, educational tools or anything non-profit really. It's a pretty powerful tool for fairly little money.

According to the license you are not allowed to use the engine for those purposes.

Mr.K.:On the technical side however this is dumb, you the already buggy software depend on an also buggy DRM which means every problem will be twice as much work to figure out. And now users need to rely on keeping two accounts secure/companies happy, because if either side decide your account is no good then you are shit out of luck and the development tools are gone.

I think you're getting confused between the FreeSDK (still available on www.crydev.net) and EaaS (available on Steam).

Hopefully they will make the engine tools have all the good stuff that comes with streamworks and workshop. Having a library of free user created content would be great and a great way form people to learn and share. I also hope they use this to in some way have cloud and collaborative projects supported with their engine tools.

They could even have their engine work in a middle ground kind of Gary's mod way too where people can share free models or fun, light game-modes without having to necessarily make a whole new game. That would be smart; ease people into developing by having a fun sandbox.